If you shout something loud enough and many people are saying it, does it become true? Some groups of people (include tech journalists and Linux advocates, such as Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols) have a psychological need to find Vista lacking. Mr. V-N has predicted that Vista will have all manner of problems, so his clear interest is to point out everything that is wrong with the OS. Who cares if he has to even make some stuff up?

Damn, this sounds almost like Get-The-Facts. I don't really like SJVN's articles either, but some of the points he brought up are quite fair. For instance:

* It's not my case, but I do know people who change their date and time quite frequently for the simple fact that they travel abroad with their laptops and they don't always have immediately-available Internet connections. As far as I'm concerned, it's a pretty fair point, and I'm sure this is the kind of people who would complain about a poorly designed Date&Time window.

* There are a lot of people who do need a serial driver. I, for one, need one that works well because I often used the serial port for development reasons (e.g. interfacing with SBCs). I realize that Microsoft doesn't really care about what their customers need, but "there aren't *THAT* many people who need serial ports" is a very lousy excuse.

* I do prefer to shut down my computers when I have to, for a lot of reasons. When my hdd is getting claustrophobic, the last thing I need is Vista taking up some space to hibernate. If I know I won't be working on my laptop for several days, I don't want it to sleep for even a second (I don't care about "saving some battery power" -- if it consumes even the smallest amount, it's not good for me), I don't want it to hibernate (for hdd space reasons), I want it to shut down for good. Even if I didn't have any practical reasons for prefering to shut down my computer over sleeping/hibernating, I still wouldn't care. What I do with my computer is my choice, and I could hardly care less about what the Vista development team thinks I should do with it. "Vista is slow to boot and shut down but you won't need that anyway" is another poor excuse.

Pointing a finger at Linux advocates for not knowing the technical details of the OS-es they don't use is a bit too much. Linux advocates know about Windows just as much as Windows advocates know about Linux. Besides the fanboy-ism which you'll obviously find in any camp, most of the fair points which were brought up against Vista before it was released really stood up.

Who said that serial ports do not work anymore? I don't have one, so I couldn't test anything myself... that was my primary point there. Now, the issue that Lance had with his Wacom tablet was in the Wacom driver and there was an easy solution for it found by googling.

If you travel, you change time zones... this is different from changing the system time (which affects the timestamps put on files on the hard drives and appointments on your calendar and stuff). Time zones can be changed by any user (maybe not Guests). I just tested this on Vista and it works... have you done any even rudimentary checks before writing your response?

I don't think bootup is that sluggish. I was responding to the question in Mary Jo Foley's blog entry about hibernate and sleep "masking" a sluggish bootup. My response is that bootup is pretty reasonable, and hibernate and sleep are much faster. If you really don't have space or battery, don't use the faster means.

"""
Linux advocates know about Windows just as much as Windows advocates know about Linux.
"""

It all depends upon who you are talking about, of course. But I would wager that Linux advocates, in general, know more about Windows than Windows advocates know about Linux.

I suspect that the average Linux advocate knows more about Windows than a significant portion of the Windows advocates.

I would further generalize, and say that the average user of any Non-Microsoft OS knows quite a bit more about Windows than the average Windows user, simply out of necessity.

Note that I did switch around a bit between "advocate" and "average user" there. And nowhere did I address that class of multi-platform aware people that OSNews attracts. So be careful to note that I am not calling eclectically educated Windows advocates stupid. :-)

PlatformAgnostic, I have seen the serial driver performing badly on some systems myself. It was around the time I read SJVN's article and (having some problems digesting his articles myself) and I was convinced it was not Windows-related, but it does happen to work perfectly well with Linux.

My problem with Windows and timezones (and why I'd rather change the time than the timezone) is related to what timezone really means. I'm not sure if this is leftover in Vista, but it's a habit I've had since Windows 98 I think, and which remained in 2000 and XP. The notion of "timezone" is strictly related to time (something I got used to from *nixes), but when I change my timezone in Windows, it also understands that I am changing my location as well -- so that it changes my local currency, decimal commas into dots and so on, which I simply don't want.

As far as I'm concerned, I was never bothered with boot times because I actually caught not just the days when it took a few seconds to boot into BASIC but also about two minutes to boot a crawling OS on slow hardware. However, remember that Microsoft promised incredibly fast boot times. To whom were they promising that, I do not know, but any Gentoo or FreeBSD user will laugh at anything longer than 15 seconds.

Don't get me wrong, SJVN (and MJF, in some aspects) really *should* open their minds -- what I really mean to say is that much of Microsoft's advertising is seriously inflated. Not that it would be a solitary practice the likes of Apple don't do -- but it still holds. I don't think there was a single piece of software not to be unfairly criticized.

But if you look at many of the points that were brought even before Vista got final, you'll see how most of the criticism comes from users of other platforms. I didn't trust them too much either (the same happened with Windows XP a few years ago). I did manage to understand these critics because I haven't used Windows consistently myself, and next to none of Vista's "novelties" were anything new to me.

Nevertheless, this doesn't justify unfair criticism, which is something about which I agree with you :-).

Because I respect some of the people working on Windows and some who have developed it. There are serious screw-ups in there, but the Kernel mechanisms invented by Dave Cutler are quite well-designed with the lessons learned from UNIX and other systems.

The USER subsystem that Raymond Chen and many others have worked on has many warts and compatibility hacks, but it was for a long time the fastest way to draw a desktop to the screen.

The distributed file system, which was partly written (in its original form) by Larry Ostermann solved problems that the Unix world left to applications, much to the detriment of portability and correctness (do you like those .nfs files that appear when doing shares? or the necessity of creating .lock files everywhere?).

I care because, although I haven't met these people, I realize that they are engineers to look up to and not some organs of a corporate leviathan. I care because I don't want to see other students be seduced by the "worse is better" mentality that many UNIX denizens espouse.

I care that I had to buy a cheap PC today for my ex's parents, and that I couldn't get a single one with XP at the local Future Shop. I didn't have time to shop around, unfortunately, so I had to pick one up with Vista.

I care that it took two and a half hour to reinstall it in French (while installing a language pack in Linux takes less than a minute). I care that it is extremely sluggish for a 512MB system, while it could really fly with a lighter system on it.

I care that it took two minutes and 25 seconds to boot into a working Vista desktop, while it took two minutes and 10 seconds booting into Kubuntu 7.04...from a live CD! I also care that the system was more responsive from the LiveCD for simple tasks (like exploring files, surfing the web, moving windows around and the like).

I care that I didn't have access to the Samba shares on my LAN because the new PC came with Home Basic. Or maybe you can, but I couldn't find it because they changed the control panel UIs again.

This was my first contact with Vista. I've installed and used a large variety of MS OSes in my time: Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 and XP. This was by far the most disappointing one (then again, I never installed ME). Sure, some great engineers work for MS, and they have my respect. That still doesn't make Vista a great Windows release. For starters, all the backwards compatibility cruft are making it incredibly bloated.

Look at it this way: if it was such a great product, there wouldn't be *that* much negative opinions about it. The engineers may not be to blame (I personally think the responsibility lies above them), but that doesn't change the basic fact: the "Wow" is elsewhere.

512 MB is too little RAM for Vista. Maybe if you turn Aero off, it might be okay, but I don't think anyone (besides Microsoft) will tell you that 512 is enough. I'm not going to defend the indefensible.

I also don't think the language situation is perfect. But if you needed the OS in French, why was it in English in the first place? This doesn't help you, but enterprises can get multilingual packs that can be installed on a per-user basis... you also get these if you buy Ultimate edition. If not, I guess you're consigned to reinstalling the OS.

512 MB is too little RAM for Vista. Maybe if you turn Aero off, it might be okay, but I don't think anyone (besides Microsoft) will tell you that 512 is enough. I'm not going to defend the indefensible.

Well, obviously HP and Future Shop believe that 512MB is enough, since they sell the systems. As I said, FS no longer sold any systems with XP (none from other OEMs either). How is the average consumer supposed to know that the *new* PC he's buying is not powerful enough to adequately run the OS it's shipped with?

The bigger point, of courses, is that Vista *should* be able to run on 512 MB. 512MB, while not that much, is still quite a lot of memory. XP runs very well on such a system - I find it mind-boggling that MS, with all its talented engineer, wasn't able to produce an advanced OS that could run with that amount of memory.

I was almost tempted to leave the Kubuntu LiveCD in the CD-ROM tray and not tell my ex's parents...

I also don't think the language situation is perfect. But if you needed the OS in French, why was it in English in the first place?

Um, because that's what they were selling at the store? Hey, I know some of this criticism is not MS's responsibility, it's the OEM's and the store's, but what is the average consumer going to think? He's going to be staring at his computer screen for two and a half hours, wondering why it takes so long (why *does* it take so long, incidentally? It takes less than 20 minutes to install the whole Kubuntu OS...). Oh, and after these two and a half hours, it's another forty-five minutes of updates before you have a completely ready system...great!

There's no real engineering reason to require a reinstall if you want a different language...it's a business reason, and these are what plague Windows the most, in my view. It'd be a great OS if it was open-sourced, and didn't have to serve to maintain MS's revenue stream. I won't even mention the times when you need more than one language on the same computer...

This doesn't help you, but enterprises can get multilingual packs that can be installed on a per-user basis... you also get these if you buy Ultimate edition. If not, I guess you're consigned to reinstalling the OS.

Yes, and the Ultimate version was worth as much as the PC I was buying. This was not an option for the future owner.

I bought a brand new Acer two weeks ago that came with Vista Home Basic.

It's an Athlon XP X2 4000+. Decent system all around, came with 512mb of RAM.

Vista took over two minutes to boot (and no, this was not "First boot"). The first bootup was a two hour ordeal (mostly due to crapware)...

When I finally cleared all the junk off, it still took almost two minutes to boot up to a usable desktop (meaning the hd wasn't grinding like it was about to explode anymore).

After trying out IE7 (I was going straight to d/l Firefox), while simultaneously trying to browse the control panel to get a feel for it, and my computer practically locking up trying to do both, I realized enough was enough.

Vista wasn't much prettier (after all, I guess my brand new computer just isn't powerful enough to render the awesomeness that is VISTA)

After fighting with it for a few hours, I tossed my Feisty RC install cd in. It installed in about 20 minutes. Updated in another 20 or so. And I was able to install codecs, Nvidia drivers, etc in another 20 or so.

In that hour I had everything working perfectly, quickly, and smoothly. My computer actually feels like MINE...Like I am in control. That's how it should be. How it was in win95 on my compaq 2200 with 16mb of RAM and 1.8gb hd! Wow that takes me back.

Point is, Linux is not perfect. But what Microsoft has done is release a product that is even farther from perfect. A product that many of us are learning to despise.

Largest OS maker in the world, with a monopoly that is consistently abuses, with tons of what are supposed to be the best and brightest...And they churn THIS out?

They didn't have any Dells under 500$CAN at the store (tax + extended warranty included). Even then, all the Dells had Vista on them.

If I hadn't been in a situation where I needed to get the computer NOW, I would have shopped around town to find a place that still sold PCs with XP. As it is, the new owners will probably have to fork out more cash in order to get more memory (then again, maybe they'll just learn to live with the sluggishness - they aren't heavy computer users).

I care because I don't want to see other students be seduced by the "worse is better" mentality that many UNIX denizens espouse.

We prefer "simpler is better." Surely with enough talent and man-hours, you can create a gigantic tangle of complexity that manages to function as an operating system. But is that better than a set of simple components that fit together in a logical way?

Students learn UNIX because its design is comprehensible, elegant, and fundamental to understanding computer systems. They don't learn Windows because there's no reason to mimic its design. Maybe its feature-set, but not its design.

I'm sure there are countless top-notch developers working on Windows, and the kernel is actually pretty decent these days, but the platform as a whole is screwed. Microsoft can try their best to improve their code quality, but they cannot immediately abandon unfortunate design elements (e.g. the registry) or police their crappy third-party drivers and applications. You can't put sour milk in the fridge and expect it to become drinkable.

What the Windows faithful don't understand, and many of the Linux advocates as well, is that third-party software is what makes running Windows insecure and unreliable. I have no problem with third-party software as long as it's open source, but I'll only accept proprietary software if the vendor offers full support for their product. Microsoft can't support the vast array of proprietary third-party software that its customers use, but when this crap fouls up their systems, it reflects poorly on them. People install a couple dozen applications that all disclaim any responsibility if anything goes wrong, and then when things go south, they blame Microsoft.

So excuse me if I'm not dying to see all sorts of third-party proprietary software on Linux, because the result will be much of the same. I like the fact that my software vendor supports nearly all of the software on my system, providing timely fixes and easy upgrades. If I use proprietary software, I have to live with the fact that flash might not work in a 64-bit browser or that the NVIDIA drivers might not work with the latest version of Xorg for months. I don't try to file a class-action lawsuit when the proprietary drivers don't work properly. I understand that with proprietary software, I'm at the mercy of the vendor, and if I don't like the way their software works or what environments they support, there's nothing I can do about it.

I find it amusing that journalists are going to such great lengths to rationalize the public's general distrust of Microsoft or criticisms of Vista on technical grounds. In the end, it's not UAC, DRM, WGA, or the various UI quirks that create the sentiment that Vista is simply more of the same from Microsoft. It's just that everybody is fed up with the proprietary software industry screwing us over and making us deal with the mess. We can't keep blaming Microsoft forever. We have to give credit where credit is due and point our fingers squarely at the proprietary vendors, particularly the graphics vendors. They suck at shipping good drivers for Windows almost as much as they suck at delivering them for Linux.

Thanks for a thought-out reply. You're absolutely right about third-party binaries and their detrimental effect on the stability of the system. The applications I use the most on Windows are either written by Microsoft or Open Source, so I definitely live by your statement. I have no choice with drivers, but I'm lucky to have mostly intel hardware with pretty decent drivers.

I have a pretty strong philosophical difference with you on the nature of simplicity in the OS. The Linux/UNIX method of simplicity is great for certain tasks, like high-performance-computing and portable servers. It's also great for bringing up new hardware, as you said in a recent post. But when it comes to making applications that have to have many interactions with the underlying system or which have to get a naturally complex task done, I think it's better to put some intelligence into the OS.

File-locking in distributed filesystems is the first issue that comes to mind for me. Windows has a pretty interesting mechanism to do distributed locking in the SMB protocol. UNIX used NFS for quite some time, which didn't even attempt to solve this problem, so it appears in applications. This is fixed in newer DFSes like NFSv4, but it's an example of what I consider "worse-is-better."

The registry is a Windows solution to setuid. It's basically a filesystem for storing key-value pairs which can be ACLed separately from each other. It also has atomic operations and in Vista, MSFT has implemented ACID transactions on the registry so partial installs can be transparently rolled back. I'd see the registry as a design strength of Windows rather than a design flaw.

I'm sure you've seen this before. I don't necessarily believe everything in here, but I think it's pretty funny and accurate in areas: http://www.simson.net/ref/ugh.pdf

I respect your opinion in general, and I'd like some specifics in areas where you think the Windows design is deficient. I'm sure I'll agree with you on a lot of them, but the disagreements could be interesting. How would you feel about doing a joint OSNews article? It could be high-quality.

The Linux/UNIX method of simplicity is great for certain tasks, like high-performance-computing and portable servers... But when it comes to making applications that have to have many interactions with the underlying system or which have to get a naturally complex task done, I think it's better to put some intelligence into the OS.

What I mean by simplicity is that a complex system is made up of simple and often interchangeable components that interface in a well-defined manner. Each component can be developed in loose coordination with its neighbors and completely ignorant of other components in the system.

The complexity isn't in the components themselves so much as the way they fit together. This is why UNIX and free software has excelled in the server space, where systems are often logically structured as a stack of components. The choice of where to draw the lines and how the components communicate isn't really that difficult in a stack.

But a desktop is more like a tree or even a more general form of graph. Some components form a sort of stack, others connect to a bus, some synchronize, others stream, and many participate in a combination of these relationships. Where to draw the lines and how to connect the dots is a harder problem, and as we watch the free software desktop develop mature technologies like DBUS and KParts, we see more powerful ways of connecting the components of the desktop becoming central pillars of the platform.

But as the componentized system that evolved in a distributed development environment becomes more powerful, or intelligent as you say, the complexity of each component stays in check, and the complexity of their relationships scales reasonably. The monolith forged in the halls of the Redmond campus, on the other hand, becomes harder and harder to maintain as new features creep in.

I shied away from your NFS comment before, but I'll agree with you that NFSv3 had its shortcomings and that NFSv4 is arguably even worse overall. Of course, Linux and other UNIX-like systems have SMB and CIFS support, but that doesn't mean that this is the best possible solution. There are other DFSs like Cargenie Mellon's AFS and Coda, IBM's GSA, and Red Hat's GFS, among many others. Then there's the trend of tunneling anything and everything through SSH to arrive at some interesting solutions like sshfs.

I have no problem with a registry in theory, such as the gconf registry in GNOME. But the Windows registry was subverted by malware authors early on, and Microsoft has seemed powerless to do anything about it. Maybe you could better explain how this happened, if you agree that the registry has become a weakness for Windows, that is.

I'm not sure about the concepts behind DBUS and KParts and what their stated advantages and design goals are. As far as I can tell, they are means for providing standardized methods for things which were left to convention in the UNIX world. When I get a chance, I'll write a longer reply (or maybe I'll attempt another article) looking at those two specific components and their equivalents on Windows. Also, I'm no Russinovich, so I don't have all the details.

Why does the registry get "taken over"? Well, there are three or four different places in the registry that are used to configure auto-start programs. Maybe more. Malware puts keys here to auto-launch itself. This seems pretty equivalent to putting lines into the init.d scripts (or rc.d...). Or you can put lines into the xinit file or the kde/gnomeinit files. Or you could stick something into the startup script for some other popular system service.

I suppose with the registry change notification services, you could watch the auto-launch keys and replace them when they are removed. But you could use similar tricks using FAM on *nix.

The weakness in the registry could be the lack of privilege separation with regards to some keys. As some people have said, it might be worthwhile to grant an installer access to only the keys it needs in order to install rather than every administrative key on the system. But this is similar to the root/user divide on UNIX. The solution to this seems to be a capabilities-based OS. I hope this is something commercial and OSS people look at, but the cost might be higher than the payoff.

"What the Windows faithful don't understand, and many of the Linux advocates as well, is that third-party software is what makes running Windows insecure and unreliable. I have no problem with third-party software as long as it's open source, but I'll only accept proprietary software if the vendor offers full support for their product. Microsoft can't support the vast array of proprietary third-party software that its customers use, but when this crap fouls up their systems, it reflects poorly on them"

Hear Hear. I think poorly written drivers are one of the biggest problems for Windows, follow a BSOD, and you'll usually end up with a 3rd party driver. Add on top of that AV software (with hooks into the kernel), spyware scanners, and the user running as Admin, and you have a recipe for disaster.

You are right that much of the work being put in Windows is high-quality. They have to live with a huge amount of obsolete code, but they manage quite well.

Still, whether it is all right or not, and no matter who is to blame (notice many windows haters now say linux is insecure because a out-of-tree driver had a security problem, fixed 4 months ago), Vista isn't that great. It might need time to mature, right, but it took 'em 5 years to get it out of the door, and it still isn't stable nor much more usable (in hindsight, XP wasn't that bad...).

And no matter how great Windows technically is or will be, Microsoft still doesn't care about their users, implements all kinds off freedom-limiting technology and uses unfair and market-value destroying strategies to keep their monopoly. The company might not be 'true evil' but it sure is bad for humanity right now, and thus I considder it unethical to use, sell or promote their software.

They just had to change the 98 to XP to Vista without ever changing the content of the articles.

That only works because Windows really hasn't changed much for years. The first thing I noticed when I fired up Vista was how much it looked and felt exactly like XP. Notepad, Paint, so many of the configuration dialogs, all of it looks and feels very much like XP. After 5 years of development on Vista they still haven't found time to improve Notepad or Paint? Lots of people actually use those basic tools and having a few more features thrown in would really help.

Another journalist even questioned his accuracy and said: "You'd have to wonder why Vaughan-Nichols made what were at times incorrect and at other times naive comments about Debian. Was he playing the troll? Or was he genuinely unaware of the naivety of some of what he wrote?"

Anyway, I'm sorry, but for me, many of his articles are real turn-offs. They are rants, diatribes, and frankly, very negative and unflattering of the Linux community. They are also often biased or incorrect. His sole concern seems to be the commercialization of Linux and he appears to have no interest in or appreciation of the thousands of volunteers that really make up Linux and the community.

SJVN writes some good, well thought out articles. But with others, they come off as anti MS FUD, for which he deserves to be called on.

But I just chuckle when someone complains about anti-MS FUD, when the FUD going the other way is much larger, by orders of magnitude.

When you take into account the MS "Get the facts" campaign, Steve Ballmer's suggestion of Linux IP violation, the hordes of "Analysts", who are on MS payroll (either directly or indirectly), who constantly bash Linux, and then all the "Windows Fanboys" who flame against Linux at any opportunity, and the "sue by proxy" (read SCO) by MS, and I can go and and on, the ranting articles by the likes of SJVN are a mere drop in the ocean in comparison.

I read the 'get the facts' campaign, and I certainly don't see anything wrong with it; sure, like *any* companies product analysis, there are going to be assumptions based on 'best case scenario' but if you were to make a decision involving large amounts of money, you'd look at a number of sources for analysis.

Steve Ballmer's suggestion of Linux IP violation

Nice to see you complain about FUD and yet take the interview with Balmer completely out of context as to what the point of the interview.

The interview was relating to software patents; the issue was relatign to patents and how it affects Microsofts software.

He pointed out in the interview that Microsoft does its best to make sure that the software they write do no infringe on others patents, but its not an easy thing to do.

It then goes on to talk about others that might violate Microsoft's patents, to which Balmer quotes another source, completely unrelated to Microsoft, who said that Linux violated a number of licences. One only assumes that its based on 'well, Linux does this, Windows does this, so therefore patent violation (compatibility doesn't necessarily mean violation as there are many ways to implement a given thing).

Interesting how you completely ignore the summery at the end; that is, Balmer stating that this was an *industry* problem that needed to be resolved through a combination of patent reform *and* cross patent licencing - hence the cross patent licencing agreements between Microsoft, Novell, Sun and Samsung.

The hordes of "Analysts", who are on MS payroll (either directly or indirectly), who constantly bash Linux

Interesting, you talk about these 'analysts' on Microsofts payroll indirectly or directly, and yet, you ignore the fact that these are disclosed. You also ignore the fact that IBM, Novell, Sun, HP and OSL all either pay for or conduct their own 'analysis' of the products they sell.

I certainly don't attack them when they do it; what I do say, like I say about those conducted by Microsoft - look at all the information that is out there on the given product, both positive and negative.

and then all the "Windows Fanboys" who flame against Linux at any opportunity

Who? who flame against Linux? I certainly don't; I simply point out the reasons why *I* don't run Linux. For any well adjusted individual, the reasons for me not running Linux shouldn't impact on their reason for running Linux.

My reason for choosing not to run Linux should require a tonne of replies to posts on my blog completely missing the point of the article let alone failing to read the replies I make to those replies.

I would say the greatest problem I find with Linux 'zealots' are their inability to read all the article, read all the replies, and the replies I made, and coming up with a constructive reply that challenges me rather than demanding me copy and paste the same reply I make to others who make the same statements.

and the "sue by proxy" (read SCO) by MS, and I can go and and on, the ranting articles by the likes of SJVN are a mere drop in the ocean in comparison.

And what did SCO pay for? thats right, Microsoft paid for SCO intellectual property (patents and source code) - so I guess since Linux hates code, its all ok to start stealing code off SCO? nice attempt to grab the moral high ground.

I have tried Vista on 6 different computers, and the one thing that gets me the most is that sometimes Vista drops keystrokes. If you are typing a document in Word or filling in forms on a web page, or typing in your favourite ssh terminal from vista to your Linux box, there are times when the system is under load, and random characters get dropped. On slower systems it gets really bad, and there are times when I have to hit keys repeatedly for them to "take". Still trying to figure out why...

There will be a steady decline in Windows marketshare. MS will have a very hard time keeping their monopoly with an abomination like Vista.

How can you possibly support such a statement? Vista is the default OS being sold by virtually every PC OEM. As long as that remains the case, Vista will increase in market share. It can't help but increase.

If you think Vista is wonderful, then you don't need to smoke anything, you are high enough already.

If you think there are better alternative to Windows then dude i don't really want to be near to what you are smoking...but a friendly advice would be - to stop smokin that shyt man because them things can fcuk u up bad (like SJVN:)).

"If you think there are better alternative to Windows then dude i don't really want to be near to what you are smoking...but a friendly advice would be - to stop smokin that shyt man because them things can fcuk u up bad (like SJVN:))."

Who will be switching? Let's face it unless either Linux gets native Office and Adobe suite (or their open source equivalents improve astronomically) or Apple lets Dell and HP sell OS X boxes, there is nothing that will seriously threaten Microsoft's dominance on the desktop over next 18 month. And 18 month is plenty of time for MS to sort out any problems there might be.

I disagre. Gimp doesn't have the high end features to compete with photoshop and it doesn't have the ease of use to compete with low end consumer packages. And I'm saying that as a gimp user.

[i]The Drm/activation/WGA, high prices, bad EULA and absurd system requirements will still be there in 18 months.

We'll see. If there is a genuine revolt against DRM and WGA that threatens their market share, there is nothing stopping microsoft from reworking them in a servicepack. That being said I doubt most people are that bothered by the two as most people here are. As for the system requirement in 18 month they'll be positivly low end.

Look I love Linux, and don't like Vista in the slightest. I'm however not letting that stop me from being realistic.

Actually, if more companies jump on EMI's bandwagon andd start selling DRM free music and Movies, there may not be DRM in Vista in 18 Months.

Vista's activation is nothing, it neither gets in the way or is restrictive, it is no less annoying then XP's.

The System requirements are in no way absurd, the same bullsh*t was spouted when XP came out, and Win2k. Vista ran just dandy on my Athlon XP 2800/1G ram, and it runs acceptably on mY 1G Celeron with 756. Even with Aero running. and Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim and thunderbird all running, it still ran ok.

"Actually, if more companies jump on EMI's bandwagon andd start selling DRM free music and Movies, there may not be DRM in Vista in 18 Months."

MS removing DRM from Vista........not likely.

"Vista's activation is nothing, it neither gets in the way or is restrictive, it is no less annoying then XP's."

Activation does nothing to stop pirates, while annoying paying customers.

"The System requirements are in no way absurd, the same bullsh*t was spouted when XP came out, and Win2k."

The system requirement increase for XP to Vista is MUCH more than the increase for 98 to XP. Linux is MUCH faster than Vista. Vista is a slow, bloated, drm infected mess, that will give Linux significant marketshare gains. Apple will probably get a marketshare increase also.

It's obvious from reading this entire topic, that you are unable to discuss this reasonably. You just keep repeating yourself over and over.

MS knows that DRM is bad for business, and just like Apple (who has just as much DRM in OS X and the iPod) has been in talks with the record companies to get rid of it. EMI is the first, MS is in talks with them right now:

"MS knows that DRM is bad for business, and just like Apple (who has just as much DRM in OS X and the iPod) has been in talks with the record companies to get rid of it. EMI is the first, MS is in talks with them right now"

If MS knew DRM was bad for business, they would not have infected Vista with it. They are thinking of selling DRM free music because the Apple/EMI deal has forced them to do so. MS is already planning the next DRM OS:

It would be worse for business to sell an OS that can't play HD-DVDs and Blue-Ray. An Apple/EMI didn't force them, everybody but the labels want to get rid DRM, DRM adds needless complexity and inflexibility to the OS.

Vista has no more DRM than OS X and iTunes. I'm not sure where you are getting your info from, but perhaps if you just did some googling, you'd see it is an industry wide problem, and not just MS's.

"OpenOffice and GIMP are good enough for the vast majority of users, for the rest there is CrossOver or Wine."

Your being delusional. I am a fan of Open Source (pats his LAMP box) but to think GIMP is the equal of Photoshop is like saying a Buick is on par with a Rolls. You might wish it was but it just ain't so. I even like the way OOo handles databases better then Access and how much cleaner Writer is then Word. We get submissions for our site in Word format we open and clean them up in OOo first and then they go to FCKedit. But I don't think it ready to be a straight up replacement for Office.

And don't give me "but they are free." That is what you are competing against. Your competing with free. You have to make them better then free Windows and free Photoshop. Bill G knows this. It isn't just because he is a nice guy that he is practically giving away Win/Office in China($3 a copy). You may notice lots of requirements to keep people from pirating Windows. Yet you don't for O2k7. Why? Because you need Windows to run that free copy of Office.

"Your being delusional. I am a fan of Open Source (pats his LAMP box) but to think GIMP is the equal of Photoshop is like saying a Buick is on par with a Rolls."

I did not say it was equal, I said it was good enough for the vast majority of users. Most people don't need the extra features that Photoshop offers. They also don't need MS office, OpenOffice can easily do the job for most people.

"Who will be switching? Let's face it unless either Linux gets native Office and Adobe suite (or their open source equivalents improve astronomically) or Apple lets Dell and HP sell OS X boxes, there is nothing that will seriously threaten Microsoft's dominance on the desktop over next 18 month."

Some groups of people (include tech journalists and Windows advocates) have a psychological need to find Linux lacking.

This was a pretty good article. It was refreshingly different from the previous "I hate Microsoft/Vista" articles that have been posted too often. He provided proof of how SJVN was caught spreading some mistruths and taking it to the extremes. Well thought out and well reasoned, and most of all it was civilized without getting into name calling and other types of flame wars.

...which I have experienced on numerous occasions from customer support here in the U.S. It doesn't take a 'complete ass' to recognize that these problems are not unique to India (or anywhere else for that matter).

When a corporation makes a change SIMPLY TO SAVE MONEY quality often goes down. This has nothing to do with India or it's people, it's the corporations shoddy training and focusing only on bottom line. It happens in the US and other nations all the time too.

Again, leave out the race, location, nationality issues and try to see my point.

To assume that a comment made was xenophobic is an extreme personal attack to myself and completely wrong.

If this India comment is about my name, I suppose you'd find it interesting to note that I'm an American-born, American-raised son of an Indian doctor. Sure, my family isn't totally into all American traditions like Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but I have much more in common with my country than with India, and I'd like to make it a better place on its own merits. What do you want to do for your country?

I don't think that you understood what the parent poster meant. Whe he said is that there are thousands of old serial devices out there for which the only way to communicate with it is to write something in C or ASM over serial or RS232 interfaces.

It has nothing to do with the age of the machine, although you do get a point when you say that it will be hard for someone to find a new machine to buy that has such a thing.

OK, I've never thought that I would be defending SJVN, but the author of this article is being even more illogical than SJVN.

I followed some of the links on SJVN's recent article, and I'd like to address some of them. I'm going to ignore all of the links about how it's doing on the marketplace because I frankly care more about using an OS than about who else is using it.

One of the major points of SJVN's article is that Vista isn't very successful. You on the other hand, would like to prove that SJVN isn't being objective. And you're doing so by simply ignoring his data? What's wrong with you???

And I'm not going to address his self-referential links because I don't put any stock in his objectivity. The following rebuttal is organized by the linked-to articles. I don't care about the specific points SJVN is making... I just want to show that his data is suspect or perfectly explainable.

Wait, so you're trying to prove that SJVN isn't objective using his (alleged) lack of objectivity as one of your premisses? That's a logical fallacy.

One of the major points of SJVN's article is that Vista isn't very successful. You on the other hand, would like to prove that SJVN isn't being objective. And you're doing so by simply ignoring his data? What's wrong with you???

A. It's too early to evaluate whether Vista is "successful" from a market perspective.

B. Whether or not Vista is "successful" or not is irrelevant to the question of whether Vista is a useful operating system.

Wait, so you're trying to prove that SJVN isn't objective using his (alleged) lack of objectivity as one of your premisses? That's a logical fallacy.

No, bad leap in logic. He's simply saying that he's not willing to accept SJVN's other articles as "proof" for one of SJVN's current points, based on his lack of credibility.

A. It's too early to evaluate whether Vista is "successful" from a market perspective.

Well, since you seem to be well acquainted with PlatformAgnostic's way of thinking, maybe you could explain to me why this simple explanation for refusal to consider a substantial portion of data presented by SJVN was simply omitted. Refusal to examine a portion of evidence without any substantial justification doesn't particularly increase the examiner's own credibility.

B. Whether or not Vista is "successful" or not is irrelevant to the question of whether Vista is a useful operating system.

Whether or not Vista is "useful" or not is irrelevant to the question of whether Vista is a financially successful operating system. Microsoft had invested a lot of time and money into creating Vista. ROI != usefulness. Also, let's not forget the main point of SJVN's argument: since Vista will be a financial failure, Microsoft should just open-source it. Now, personally, I think it's a seriously flawed idea. However, I also happen to think that PlatformAgnostic's "rebuttal" is equally flawed.

No, bad leap in logic. He's simply saying that he's not willing to accept SJVN's other articles as "proof" for one of SJVN's current points, based on his lack of credibility.

Yes, the very same credibility his argument sets out to dispute. That's circular logic. You cannot cite your conclusion as one of your premisses. No amount of semantic wiggling can change that.

I was attempting to dispute SJVN's sources, since I don't particularly trust his assertions and wanted to see the data behind them. I'm a student, and I wrote this article to take a break from one of my most stressful weeks ever. I'm not paid to do this, so I'm not going to spend my time chasing down every reference in SJVN's web.

I just wanted to point out that there was a bit of a ZDNet echo chamber. SJVN echoing himself is not that interesting to me. If you have a point to make about any SJVN fact I missed, please post it here so that it may be discussed. I'd like to keep the scope technical, though... I won't respond to points about marketshare or licensing practices. DRM is fair game, but only the technical aspects of it.

I don't object to your examination of facts presented by SJVN. I am merely pointing out the fact one of your premisses and the conclusion you're trying to reach, are the same, which constitutes a logical fallacy. Your argument is fundamentally flawed. Now, this has nothing to do with whether SJVN is being objective or not (personally, I think he and objectivity weren't exactly introduced to one another). I don't have a problem with your premisses or your conclusion. It's your logic I have a bone to pick with; it's simply flawed.

"SJVN is a biased troll" was my premise, not my conclusion. I'll freely admit that what I wrote was a rant, but I'd like you not to think it's a screed. I tried hard to present details which might be interesting to an OS enthusiast.

Really, the whole point of my article is the plea in my blurb at the end. I want to learn more about the internals of Linux and other OSes that people are experienced with. I think it would be fun and worthwhile to start a OSNews Enlightenment project so that we can defend our chosen OSes with facts and experiments rather than quotemining and citing biased sources like ZDNet.

I think you'd do best to start investigating things such as noexec mount support, suauth authentication, SELinux/Grsecurity/Apparmor for Linux and Zones, Trusted Extensions and Process Access Rights for Solaris.

These come by default with modern Unix/Linux OSes and are sadly lacking even in the newest Windows version. They must not be a priority or too difficult to be made to fit the current NT system design.

Also it could very well be that NT might be safe at the kernel level. It is certainly not at the user level and that is what most complaints from Unix/Linux users are about.

They ask for a replacement for Win32 that is securely coded from scratch without any transfer of older code. If Microsoft manages to pull this off a lot of the complaints about Windows' security would be gone.

The fact that Apple has managed to do this and Microsoft hasn't puts the latter at a huge disadvantage that will take them a long time or forever to overcome.

NT based operating systems were supposed to be as good as or better than OpenVMS in stability, reliability and security just like Linux is compared to Unix. I really can't see how this could possibly be the case. Enlighten me if you know any better.

fanboy fights again.. this is like watching celebrity deathmatch. We all are entitled to our opinions and the author made SOME good points regarding published comments and aarticles regarding Vista. BUT the author also made a few negative ones that make him come across as a gun for hire by Microsoft (in parts at least).

Now what REALLY is interesting about MS is the licensing.. and that's what killed my mood today after a meeting with them... I plan to write an article within the next few days about this because whoever said that a TCO of a Windows infrastructure was much cheaper then anything else, wasn't just smoking crack, they were smoking anything they found.

I am appalled by the cost that they squeeze from the enterprise and because of the auditing and licensing etc. you have to buy them.. Oh and if you think that buying a copy of Vista for your clients is enough to access Windows Servers, think again.. the OS is NOT considered under CALs generally...

Anyway, this was totally off topic. My bad. about the article, well it looks like someone didn't like what SJVN had to say and thought it would be good to publish something against it.
Nothing spectacular here except maybe trying to start another flamewar...

Despite what PlantformAgnostic wants everyone to believe. Microsoft is truly at fault for not creating a secure foundation for Windows to be built on and going up from there. Instead Microsoft tries to fix it at the top and work it's way down and that just doesn't work.

You may not like the way that UNIX handles security but the things is, UNIX security works a lot better than Windows security. The main reason why UNIX doesn't sell millions of copies for desktop computers is mostly the elitism of UNIX core OS programmers and the CEOs that artificially keep the price high.

Despite what Microsoft fanboys want to admit. It is not through obscurity that UNIX, including Linux and Mac OS X, is far more secure than Windows is.

As PlantformAgnostic said, security isn't easy. But it is a cop out to not hold their feet to the fire to create something better. How many people work at Microsoft? Easily over 40,000 people. You would think someone there knew how to build a lot more secure kernel.

Would it break backwards compatibility? Yes. But that's what emulators are for. Apple had the Classic Box so it can be done. And Mac OS X is far more secure than OS 9 and before. Again. It can be done.

Where there is a will there is a way. It's just that someone near the top has to will it. If they won't or can't it won't be done. So far we can see there isn't much of a will.

"I hope to show that these bugs are rather complicated issues that are inevitable in any large software project. They have nothing in particular to do with Vista's design and everything to do with its sheer size." (from the article)

Putting all the backwards compatibility warts and other stuff in there is a design decision!
Maybe they've done their best to limit the ramifications of this decision but they still made it.

I do hope they soon come to the point where they question this decision because - as Vista's delayed release has shown - this way of development is no longer sustainable.

I mean, they really got the money to hire the best programmers out there if they're not already working for MS.
Imagine what they could achieve if they made a fresh start and stopped supporting ancient bugs just to keep the buggy apps running...

As other people have said before, the right time for this step will probably be when most applications use .NET.

Where's the kernel insecurity? The security problems with the NT line of Windows has most often been in the defaults rather than in the mechanisms. Running everyone as admin is convenient from the usability point of view, but not great for security. When used, the Windows ACL mechanism and security design works quite well.

We're going through the painful time now of fixing that. But your overall characterization of me is fairly accurate. I really am not a high-security person and don't truly believe in protecting my computer from actions I willingly engage in. I avoid crappy programs that do things in my name that I do not wish done, and that's all the security I desire for myself. I understand that there needs to be a separation between administrator and luser in most other scenarios.

Could you explain why you're misspelling my nick? I find that to detract from your argument.

About usability and security...
Does it by now have an option to make File Streams / Alternate Data Streams visible in Explorer? Without having to resort to crude ways like enabling file auditing and viewing them in some log or opening the CLI? I mean, this is an essential feature, there since almost eons. Can i access this feature easily with the most visible tools? Can i?

What's your fear with alternate data streams? I may be wrong, but I don't think the OS loader takes executable code from there, so viruses can hide out, but won't be automatically executed from an ADS on most user actions.

If you're worried about people violating quotas or performing DOS with ADSes, I can see what you're saying. This is an interesting attack, and I'm not sure what the answer to it is. On the other hand, I don't see how any malicious hacker can make money off of doing this, so the threat isn't too bad.

For me it is a thing of percieved security and therefore usability. I know there are other ways to hide something. But my perception is that i have an integral part of the filesystem which is not easily accessible to me. Since almost anything is about files, this irks me in a way which is equal to its integration in the lowest layers of NTFS.

I didn't purposely misspell your nick. My fault. I typed it once then copied it without realizing I had misspelled it.

Security problems are actually with both but more with the latter. Despite what they will tell you there is still a lot of security work to be done. They won't truly get really far though until they build a secure OS from the ground up.

Just like a parent that is supposed to set limits and protect their children. OS venders need to make sure to put in limits of what general users can do to themselves.

Too many people I support at work do not realize that what they do can cause someone to gain rights to their financial data on their computer. It's not that they are stupid but they assume that Microsoft would leave them vulnerable. I have to explain to them that MS does by making it too easy to say yes to hazardous websites, downloads, and attachments in e-mails.

To protect them we have several servers that constantly check all of these things, causing a slight delay in the user's access of all of them, and blocking things that are questionable. We even block zip files or any kind of file that can't be easily scanned. A message is put in their e-mail stating the attachment has been blocked and why. Same with websites.

We shouldn't have to go to this expense. The security should be built in the desktop OS to begin with.

NT is a reasonably secure OS. Starting from scratch at this point really helps no one. You lose compatibility and have to go through the iterative security testing process all over again. Even the "secure-from-the-ground-up" UNIX had to go through the trial by fire until it has reached its current status as a secure OS.

At work, could you use "Software Restriction Policies" to only allow the people you support to run supported applications? If they can't execute anything that they don't need for their job, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about them getting taken over by questionable stuff.

"NT is a reasonably secure OS. Starting from scratch at this point really helps no one. You lose compatibility and have to go through the iterative security testing process all over again. Even the "secure-from-the-ground-up" UNIX had to go through the trial by fire until it has reached its current status as a secure OS."

Reasonbly is not good enough. You gain compatibility by having a box that old programs run in like using VMWARE to run the old OS inside the new one, each protected from each other. That's how you do it. XP has had plenty of time (if Microsoft cared) to secure their OS if they could. The foundation is cracked (think of cement with cracks) though so they can't.

"At work, could you use "Software Restriction Policies" to only allow the people you support to run supported applications? If they can't execute anything that they don't need for their job, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about them getting taken over by questionable stuff."

We do have those policies in place. But when have you ever seen those policies stop someone from going to a bad website. No one knows about ALL of them and while we do our best to detect SPAM and possibly bad links for them, some will always get through. So will the occasional e-mailed document that has a virus that the AV software didn't catch. Not to mention the documents/viruses brought in on USB memory cards. We of course run AV software on the desktop and update each night there is an update. But again, show me the tests that show that any AV software catches 100% of viruses.

Software Restriction Policies are not some verbal thing. They're a feature of the OS. If you set it to "Default Deny" then the OS won't LET them run anything from those bad websites. There is some administrative overhead to this, because they can't install something they need without administrator approval.

Your users run as Limited Users anyway, though, right? If not, then nothing I'm saying applies and no OS can guarantee you security under those circumstances.

You may not have heard yet but that doesn't stop everything. Look at the article about naming programs helps determine which apps you need admin rights to install programs. There is a way to name them to where it doesn't ask for or require admin rights.

The next point is home computers. We don't have (and don't want) organizational control over home users computer. This is where they are their most vulnerable and dependent on MS doing a good job of security.

Despite the fact that Microsoft has indeed lots of very talented and capable people at hand, why is it that the general perception of the people in the ICT who tend to be informed enough about such matters see Vista as evil and too bloated? One could say, O.K. this is the 21st century, size doesn't matter that much anymore. But one could also see this as a point of no return, where the further way is destined to be software archeology like in Vernor Vinges A Fire Upon the Deep. Towards a singularity where no escape is possible. I for that matter won't even touch it with a long pole. It's just no viable option. Despite all that glitz and glitter. Go on, do a dance around the emperors new clothes. I won't be there to enjoy it :-)

It's not that my life depends on what software MS produces, is it? I may choose to evaluate Vista and decide FOR MYSELF if I like it/suites my needs/etc. I see OS-es as they are: TOOLS and in that regard, I won't use a hammer or dump whatever hammer I'm currently using, for example, just because some X(tm) hammer zealot/basher keeps throwing at me reasons to switch or dump that hammer. In the end, everyone is able to decide for himself what OS to use, so, why all this never ending fuss? I got tired of this BS.
I understand fighting for and promoting something YOU did, I find endless bashing or praising other's work a waste of time.

* currently using feisty, not because it's the best operating system ever, windows killer, the solution to the BUG (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/1), but because I'm comfy with it at the moment and I see no reasons to spend the amount of money MS is charging for Vista at the moment, I have better use for them.

I'm sorry, but Google's a bit too wide of a scattershot. Many of the top hits (top 20) are either by Microsoft or by technology press and there is no overwhelming trend in there. The ones that point out flaws in the security model are sourced from people with Antivirus software to sell.

There's a link to Peter Gutmann's article in there, but that's not really a security thing... it's DRM. There's also a link to Joanna Rutkowska's article about the flaws in the integrity level system. This is an interesting topic, but not one which you discussed... we could talk about this.

Would you like to discuss something in particular? Not something vague, like "MS should rewrite their whole OS because of bugs from 14 years ago," but a flawed security design that is affecting people you work with or talk to today.

I don't agree with all of author's arguments but I agree with his conclusion: SJVN is too biased, to the point I'm not reading those rants anymore (which is unusual for me, because I use to read about Linux, though I'm not using it. I also read about Solaris, xBSD and sometimes about little OS projects too. I use to like to read people's opinions though I'm still happy with my Vista choise.).

There's a big difference in saying "I prefer Linux" and "Everything Microsoft does is just 100% awful because it is...".

Unfortunately, that's how you end up when you start believing that Windows is popular because of marketing. Instead of asking "Why Linux community is not able to make good desktop applications, except thousands of instant messengers... thousands of little utilities etc. ?", which would be the point, you start believing that Microsoft evil marketing machine is covering users' eyes.

And then, of course, if you behave like that you just start to spread myths. So you just repeat that "Linux is inherently more secure than Windows no matter what" and you don't wonder why Linux was most hacked OS during 2005 (according to UK Gov Security agency... an article I think I found here on OSNews... if I recall it right).

Oh, and what about 0 vulnerabilities in IIS 6 or SQL 2005? Hmmm... didn't read SJVN writing about these good results nor comparing them to nasty (according to what I read) Apache 2 critical bug.

That's exactly what being biased is: bugs for your most hated OS get so important they could lead to end of planet Earth life... bugs for your preferred OS are.. well... just bugs. ;-)

Index finger waggling!
1st: Vista for now is meant for desktop use. So no comparisons between that and Apache, please.
2nd: There is no Linux as such. There are individual distributions from different vendors or groups which bundle the kernel at different patch levels and different drivers, with different administration tools and defaults for core components and packet repositories and services and bundle that with different applications. It's up to you to choose from them according to your needs, including different security subsystems which sometimes can eliminate the exploitability of said bugs in different ways.
3rd: "Good" in desktop applications is a matter of taste besides of their capabilities. Here also it is up to you to choose from them, there is more than countless incarnations of instant messengers.
4th: can you spell difference and choice?

I don't agree with all of author's arguments but I agree with his conclusion: SJVN is too biased, to the point I'm not reading those rants anymore (which is unusual for me, because I use to read about Linux, though I'm not using it. I also read about Solaris, xBSD and sometimes about little OS projects too. I use to like to read people's opinions though I'm still happy with my Vista choise.).

Plonk me in that catagory. I love reading about the interesting things that are occuring in other operating systems and software - whether or not I use them. It would be nice for people to just be happy with what they have rather than feeling the need to push their choices onto others, and bash those who happen to run a particular operating system which isn't the same as their own.

"MSFT may not be as nimble as Apple or as well-regarded as Google, but they still have large cadres of talented engineers."

The rest of the article sounds ... naÔve to me. Sorry, but Vista is in many regards a big disappointment, first of all for Microsoft. It's ok to address false claims about Vista, but the overall tone of this article just doesn't reflect how Vista is, either.

What lets me down most is how many good things Microsoft could do in its position, but seems to even fail to think about. Microsoft would have had enough power and breath to get rid of all of its relics, and to propagate new ways of computer usage.

Instead, they use all the time to release just another crappy instance of the same old system (I'm not talking about code here, but about overall design). Fine, they have new user-space audio with the side-effect of impossible hardware-acceleration on it. But how much help is this, when on the other side file system folders have to be faked to keep the system running?!

This stuff is pretty obvious to you, but could you enlighten the rest of us a bit about what you mean?

There is DRM in Vista, but there is also some DRM in XP. The DRM does not affect files that are not already DRMed and none of the encryption systems are running when your machine is not playing DRMed files. So yeah, it's a DRM platform. But it's also a platform for non-DRMed stuff and that's what most of the world will use it for.

OpenGL is not dead in any real way. The GPU vendors have always included an OpenGL implementation with their drivers. Microsoft has long included an OpenGL wrapper around DirectX for situations in which the GPU vendor fails to provide one. The situation hasn't changed. OpenGL still works on Vista, just like on XP.

The sacrifices for DRM in vista are much higher than in XP. If only MS cared about the users security as much.

OpenGL? Funny, it seems that everyone says that it's broken in a big was in vista. In addition, most gamers have found everything in vista graphic-wise buggy and crashy. With this trend, Wine will run MS Windows applications better Linux than Vista does.

It was nice of MS to encourage everyone, and I do mean everyone, to try alternative platforms.

Man, that was a serious load. Most of the Gamers I talk to that have Vista like it for the most part. They have noticed slight differences in speed, but most people still have DirectX 9.0 cards. As far as OpenGl goes, I haven't had too many problems, I don't play many games on my PC, but it handles Celestia and other GL apps just fine, but that is just my own experience.

Man, that was a serious load. Most of the Gamers I talk to that have Vista like it for the most part. They have noticed slight differences in speed, but most people still have DirectX 9.0 cards. As far as OpenGl goes, I haven't had too many problems, I don't play many games on my PC, but it handles Celestia and other GL apps just fine, but that is just my own experience.

Most of the gamers are complaining now, but like Windows XP, you'll see them praise it like mana from heaven. Windows Vista SP1 will be released in the second half of this year, along with DirectX 10, add to that new games coming not too longer after that.

Add to that the maturity of graphics drivers would have increased; given the complexity of WDDM and what it demands of graphics card driver writers, there will be teathing problems.

I agree, it's just like OS X 10.0 when it came out. It wasn't near finished, but now it is a seriously wicked OS. XP was the same, and so is Vista

I remember MacOS X when it first came out, it was horrid - and thats putting it mild; for most, it didn't start to become useful until 10.2.8/10.3.x, and an acceptable operating system to use until the later 10.3.x releases and 10.4.x.

Personally, having been in the MacOS X position before, I can assure you of one thing; Windows Vista was no where as bad as MacOS X in the early years; Windows Vista problems are related to a lack of drivers and shoddy third party software vendors (like Adobe) refusing to issue updates to solve compatibility issues

Infact, most of these companies have seen these incompability issues as a call to stop supporting their old product in favour of charging people for a minor revision upgrade for compatibility.

Geez. Read your own links. There are fixes for the mcneel case (they suggest getting a plugin from their site to use directX... perhaps installing the latest ATI/NVidia drivers helps to fix the problem too).

For the next two links, the problems are resolved by installing the latest drivers from Intel, ATI, or NVidia.

DRM has nothing to do with this because none of these applications invoke any of the DRM mechanisms. As is always the case in any OS, if you're not using something, it only takes HD space.

8: Some problems he reported through Windows Diagnostics haven't been solved yet? Boo hoo! Wait a few months and check back. It's better than before, when there was no solution most of the time and no one ever knew there was a problem. FWIW, most of my problem reports offer reasonable advice (if the driver is missing, it tells me to check the manufacturer's site... if a major program is crashing it gives a link to the latest version or to a KB article).

Thank you for the Vista tip above. It's so useful that I thought it was a Linux tip.

Vista-advocate smacking a non-Vista advocate ? From where does this urge to defend Vista and its engineers ? Like it would matter. Like we would care. It's not the love stories of Vista-believers that will make us use Vista, it's the need (work), it's the curiosity (try/buy), it's the inevitable (preload), it's the demand (kids: pa' I want Vista). Some guys coming singing odes of it won't do much. Not with me, at least.

Other than that what the frack is this

I'm looking at you, Linux advocates

? So what, we should get the point ? Or we should be ashamed and hide ? Perish in anguish ? Change religions ? Throw out our laptops and workstations and servers ? Bash and step on every head that has a Linux partition ?

Yeah, I thought so. Then whadda freaking stupidity makes one insert such a line when he's a Vista man talking about Vista to someone who was also talking about Vista ? Man, get a beer and go write fairytales.

No... please tell me about the strong areas of linux. Please try to be an OS Enthusiast rather than a Windows Hater. That's why I was looking in particular at Linux advocates.

First, the writing was about Vista vs Vista really. Encouraging people to add pro-Linux lines would make it end in fire. Not much use. Other than that, people got just too much used to react to "strong areas of Linux" stories as tales from people who no nothing about the strengths of Windows, thus also resulting in fire.

My point ? Everybody should just stick to their point and try to make valid arguments without doing collateral damage.

Anyway, I mean no offence, but these Vista vs Vista argumentations just don't matter to many of us (not even to me developing on Windows sixteen hours a day). To average users maybe, and I can see the possibilty of gaining traffic and site visits and buzz of responses from such writings, and I don't have anything against it in general (well, I've also managed to obtain financial profits from some Linux writings at some point so why should I have anything against anyone trying to do the same).

Without the Linux poking I probably wouldn't have reacted, so yes, I can confirm that even such lines can help in raising attention.

Other than that, being a Linux advocate is not a thing to dismiss or despise. What I take as being offensive is thinking of them as ignorant folks who don't know any better (writer's note: the word "better" is not used here to mean that other OSes would be better ).

I find it funny how with one breath there is outrage that MS hasn't completely rewritten Windows, yet in the next there is outrage at how compatibility has been broken. Or how people look at a screenshot and decide that the only thing Vista provides is a slightly updated GUI, and then complain that they have to relearn where things are. Microsoft has a history of looking at things long term, and Vista is only a stepping stone. They have admitted that they had to scrap development and start over two years ago, thus not everything they previewed was able to make the cut.
Vista is a big move forward in moving code into the user space and out of the kernel. And yes drivers have to be rewritten to do that, which is up to the vendors not Microsoft. Knowing this, the beta programs were vastly opened up, and communication was more than ever before. The vendors have had access to the code for more than a year now. Why haven't their development efforts been better?
Look just at just the video drivers. They may currently have glitches in some games but so did the XP video drivers when that first came out. But you know what? Now with the new driver model, when my video driver freaks out, as they all do at some point, my box no longer blue screens. The screen goes black for a second and then it comes back, with a little popup telling me that it had an issue and restarted the driver, and my game goes right on playing.
As soon as it was announce that the networking stack was being rewritten for the first time since 95, they were immediately criticized that it was now insecure as the old stack had already been attacked and patched. Never mind that the previous model assumed that all links were modem speeds, and that its very architecture had security issues, and that it's IPv6 support was wrapped around the v4 stack.
Mac might be able to scrap their previous os on a dime, but when they did that their user base was what 5%, if that. Microsoft has roughly 20 times the users to consider. There are apps written for Dos 6 that still run, and if they don't there will be hell to pay. But if you think that they aren't working on rewrite you are very mistaken. They have already done previews of Singularity, which is their research project on a fully managed code kernel. They are investing heavily in virtualization, not only of the os but of individual apps with their acquisition of Softricity. The rumors are that the next os will have the new UI, will only run natively run .net code, and will break compatibility; I would imaging using virtualization to provide compatibility instead of maintaining legacy code in the OS.
Vista does also have things I don't like, mostly UI quirks, and I have a few issues with the way UAC was implemented, in regards to not integrating the other legacy prompts so i have to click three times on some things to authorize them. But I think that it was an important step forward. I have also used other operating systems, in fact Iíll try most anything at least once. I am continuously impressed by the unique ideas that pop up in the Linux world. OSX has great consistency within their UI and some great ideas in usable UI. And I think BE was ahead of its time with the underlying operating architecture.
It's too early to say whether Vista will be financially successful. In fact Iím sure it will not sell as many in the long term as XP given that they have already said that it will not run as long between the next update. It will, however, be the first step in forcing applications to be designed with security in mind. No longer can developers assume they are running as administrator. No longer can they modify the kernel at will. Instead of plowing over the os when it is convenient applications will be forced to work with it. And as was mentioned, bugs are inevitable not only in Microsoftís code but in the third party code that runs on top of it. But the OS is now not only capable of identifying, notifying and patching these bugs, but can make best efforts to mitigate the damage they are allowed to cause. This can only result in a better experience in the long run.
Thank you to the author for a well written article.

last week a friend of mine stopped by and needed help with her new laptop that, you knew it, came with vista preinstalled. she nedded some advise on how to install some software she pretty much needs.
so i had the chance to see vista in action and use it for a day.

some parts of the UI i have to say, are pretty well designed, not in a usable way, but in the aspect of shinyness and design. good work!
but then - how do i put it and to not sound like a linux fanboy? - the sheer ignorance of the user was driving me crazy! in the ways of user interaction, they got it completely wrong.
if gnome is 'users are idiots', then vista is 'users are retarded'.

rightclicking a .zip and choosing winrars contextmenues for extracting resultetd in nothing. nothing happend at all.
doublecklicking a .zip opend winrar, but then the screen went grey and a window popped up asking me that some strange things were going on and if i really wanted do what i wanted do. sure, continue.
after extracting the .zip the same dialogue popped up, this time asking me if my installation (wtf?) went ok or not. this went on for nearly every interaction i had with vista.

sure, after that, i was as ignorant of vista as vista was ignorant of me, but how can someone call this userfriendly? i could have poked around and surely find a way to let winrar do its job the way it should, but i had to deal with installing some design software which in the end failed.

i know this is not a well researched comment. on the other hand, i interact with computers for more than 15 years, but it was also 15 years ago since i felt that helpless.

So... if I'm candidly surfing the web, it's just a bug (not a design flaw) that my computer can be completely taken away from me in the most hyped-secure (not hyper-secure) OS ever? Come ooooon! Web browsing should be MILES away from candid "taking over by a cracker".... I think it's a design flaw.

Oh... and by the way, determina sais they have bypassed the patch by microsoft.... and it took months to microsoft to develop the patch. That's the way to go!!! Life is definitely beautiful these days. :-D

1) Hardware Requirements
Every OS that is doing graphics card compositing needs lots of ram. If you are telling me you can run the latest gnome with beryl on 256, you are insane. Sure, you can run linux on a toaster, but you will be using a stripped down command line to do it. The more the OS does, the more resources it takes.

As for the people who say it should require less then XP, while doing significantly more then it already does, that is even more ludicrous.

2) DRM
For the love of god, noone is forcing you to run DRM content. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray *just* came out, it will take another year or two for them to become standard, and then where will linux be? Linux able to even run the current standard media (DVD) legally, how is not being able to run what will soon be the standard a bonus? And if you think apple will never support HD-DVD, think again. DRM is a reality, and having the choice of being able to access media you legally purchased is a feature.

3) Features
I have seen so many people now say that vista doesnt have any significant features over XP besides the eye candy. So lets take a moment to go over a few that I personally appreciate.

-Self optimizing/diagnosing system.
This is the first OS I have ever heard of that optimizes itself for what you use the most (when I launch VS or PS, they leap to the screen almost as fast as notepad), and will tell you when there is a problem and why (the other day it let me know there was a registry problem and how to fix it).

-Well done networking support
I alwas thought it was kind of pathetic that it was easier to connect PCs together using SMB with linux and mac then it was with windows to windows. The new networking control center is easy, intuitive, and a joy to use. Not only that, vista is the first os I have used that will optimize its network settings to give you the best performance to whatever you are connecting to.

-Security
The travesty that was XP seems to have given MS a complex, because Vista is (if anything) too locked down. They have implemented a security paradigm similar to Ubuntu and OSX, which is lock everything down completely except for what is owned by the user, and only escalate priviledges when required. Add on the fully functional built in firewall, absolutley paranoid IE7, DEP, and windows defender which alerts you to things like registry and startup changes, and you get something that can no longer be called insecure. OSX is the only one that does this properly for a desktop environment, but at this point, the vista security paradigm is totally on par with linux.

-Completely redone multimedia
Sound, graphics, video, and desktop rendoring are completely and totally redone. The desktop effects are significantly nicer then osx, video plays with less resources and better quality, and there is frameworks there for next-gen sound drivers which should have significantly less latency. In a year or two, windows should once again be competing with osx in terms of media creation. In this field, linux is years behind.

Vista is far from revolutionary (osx is the revolutionary one), but compared to previous versions of windows, this is the first one I have not dispised. I have heard reports of bad performance and all sorts of hardware problems, none of which i have experienced. I have heard of activation issues, which i havent experienced either, as I have an HP. Everything runs smoothly, and it is an absolute joy to use. Considering all the stuff that was changed, It is suprising it is as good as it is. Look at osx.0, it was barely usable. Now, it is the best desktop os by a long shot.

I am a big Linux fan myself but I use Windows XP/2003 95% of the time because of work (I'm a programmer and network administrator for a port management company). I've come a long way in terms of Windows (from Win3.11 WFWG) 'til Windows Vista, so I guess my views aren't that biased against Windows.

When Windows Vista came out (for enterprise users, way back November 2006), our company decided to explore the possibility of migrating about 100+ desktops to Vista by 2007 or 2008. So the company asked our unit to check out Vista (through an evaluation kit from our vendor for 6 PCs). We have been using Vista from Nov '06 till Mar '07 and guess what. We had to switch back to Windows XP.

You don't need rocket science to figure it out. Problems with drivers (initially with Nvidia but that got fixed), serial drivers (yeah, we NEED serial drivers), incompatibilities with MICROSOFT SOFTWARE (initially with ISA server client but that got fixed anyway, and with Visual Studio). We were initially patient with the problems but when we hit the incompatibilities with MICROSOFT SOFTWARE, we decided to ditch Vista. Security? You mean UAC prompts? Silly.

Vista is not yet ready for the enterprise. Thats for sure. At least in my experience and 5 other co-workers. Maybe not until next year or until they release SP1 or SP2. I love the UI though and the search capabilities but other than that, there were no features to compell me to switch from XP. Neeraj was correct when he said "Check back after a couple of months...". It's the same Microsoft of old. Release buggy software then fix with a service pack. Enterprises (and home users) don't need 7GB (yes! 7GB+ of basic install!) of buggy software masked with a beautiful eye-candy.

Bottomline: SJVN was right. Vista has problems. Don't take our word for it though. Try it for yourself. Hopefully, your experience with Vista won't be as bad as ours.